Can Life Sciences Progress Without Engineering?

Abstract

Life science has traditionally been driven by wet lab experiments carried out in the laboratory, with important observations emerging from these efforts. However, since early days itself, life sciences had to heavily depend on discoveries in physics, chemistry and engineering for making its inferences. Starting from the first microscope developed in the early seventeenth century, technology has developed in leaps and bounds, making it possible now to investigate human genome of the individuals within a day. Over the past few decades, major developments in the field of molecular biology coupled with advances in genomic technologies have led to an explosive growth in the biological information generated by the scientific community. Every aspect of life is now inextricably touched by engineering and technological developments, providing a natural answer to the question raised in the title—No, life sciences can no longer do survive without engineering. In this article, we touch upon some of such important developments that have forever changed the way biological research will be conducted.